Blauwprint Games hoping to bring Flippin’ Phones to PS Vita

Super Flippin’ Phones is by Blauwprint Games, a two-man game developer from Groningen, the Netherlands. They are working on Flippin’ Phones and developer Thomas Jager wants to bring the game to PS Vita.

I ran into Thomas Jager at the Hell O’ Bullets event in Groningen last November. It was nice meeting up with him to talk about Super Flippin’ Phones and a possible release on the Vita. More about this in my interview with Thomas, but first let me tell you something about the game.

A terrible disaster is about to happen and you’re the only one who can warn humanity. They ignore you though, because they’re all too busy checking their tweets. Your only choice is to relieve them of the terrible stress of tweeting all their food before it’s even digested, and make them aware of the dangers they’re facing. Run through the mall, evacuate phone-relieved people to the safe haven that is your cardboard box, and dodge the ignorant cops who are probably only attempting to stop you because they’re in on it.

This game is the product of 48 hours of game jamming, plus a few days’ extra work. Blauwprint Games are in the process of improving the game substantially.

Here’s my interview with Thomas from Blauwprint Games:

Can you tell us something about BlauwPrint Games?

BlauwPrint was founded early this year as collaboration between two students. We’re in the same class of Game Design & Development, and we try to combine the things we have to do for school as best as possible with what we want to achieve with the company. We’ve worked on a couple of games now, of which Flippin’ Phones, the prototype of Super Flippin’ Phones, was the first to be released for the public. Earlier, we’ve worked on a local co-op game with a hacking theme, and we won first prize at our Global Game Jam location in 2014 with our game OOSOOM.

What’s your proudest feature or what excites you the most about the game?

I’m still surprised by how we’ve achieved the addictive factor in the game, and how likeable the game is to most of the people who play it at events. What I’m most proud of is how great the game plays, and how everyone seems to give their own meaning to things in the game. For example, some weeks ago I saw this YouTube comment: “I think this game is about a little monkey that everyone thinks is retarded so they follow him out pity, go into his box, and God themselves in narnia”

I really love how keeping the story a bit clouded results in this kind of comments! And of course there’s the social criticism that may or may not be the point of the game… 🙂

What inspired you the most to make this game?

This one’s always fun to answer. At the game jam in which the original prototype was conceived, the theme was the work Relativity from Escher. There were five to six teams, and we figured that most would go with a game that involved gravity, so we really wanted to do something different.

What we focused on instead were the people in the painting; we saw that they don’t really communicate with each other. They each do their own different thing, but no-one seems to notice that other people are around. At that point, we thought: what if someone ran into this drawing and shook the people awake? That’s when we came up with the phone metaphor because those people also look like mindless people from time to time, so that was the creation of Flippin’ Phones.

Can we expect a PS4/Vita version soon after the initial release?

It all depends! We haven’t talked to Sony yet, but I think Super Flippin’ Phones is a perfect fit for a platform like the Vita. It’s quick, it’s fun to play in short sessions, and there’s a lot of potential to expand it.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Well, of course I’d like to mention to everyone that the original Flippin’ Phones is still up for grabs on itch.io, so please play the game, and of course we’d be very grateful if you’d buy us a cup of coffee!

I want to thank Thomas for taking the time for the interview.We love the idea of this game and can’t wait to slap phones out of people’s hands on the Vita. For more info about the game, follow these great guys on twitter or visit their IndieDB page.

Verocious is our contributor from The Hague and is an avid gamer since the day his father bought his first computer. He grew up playing games like Wolfenstein 3d, Duke Nukem and Tomb Raider. Although he loves all kinds of genres, he’s not really familiar with JRPG and Sports games. His favourite of all time is The Last of Us, and has a big love for Indie games. Follow Verocious on twitter @Gamethusiast

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